


On Falling

by SouthronWildling



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cruel has one syllable when I say it, I wrote a sonnet y'all, Iambic pentameter is hard when you have a weird accent, M/M, Pining, Pre-Armageddn't, Sonnets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 15:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19748197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthronWildling/pseuds/SouthronWildling
Summary: Aziraphale finds something while dusting the bookshop.





	On Falling

Tuesday, 4 August, 1987. 10:52AM.

He was dusting the bookshelves when he spotted it: a bit of folded paper, stuck in between a first edition of Shelley’s Frankenstein and an incorrectly shelved copy of Les Oeuvres Libertines by de Bergerac. He tutted and pulled the French text from the shelf, causing the loose paper to fall in a soft slump in the vacant space. It must have been there for quite some time, as the dust was very thick on the shelf and this quiet, dark nook of the bookshop was rarely frequented.

Aziraphale ran the feather duster along the wood and the books, then tucked Bergerac’s meanderings under his arm. He plucked the loose paper from the shelf, miffed at the temerity of customers who would rather tuck their rubbish into inconvenient nooks instead of discarding it properly in a wastepaper basket and stuck books willy-nilly and helter-skelter wherever they pleased. He was very nearly in a snit over it. The sheaf was old, yellowed, and when he opened it, the ink was a bit faded. The spikey script, somehow both loose and yet still angular, was very familiar, even without the reading glasses that he drew from his pocket (which he didn’t even really need, but put on anyway).

On Falling -

The plunge of Falling, cast away from Grace:

No torment crueler could be found, and yet

The passing of each century I face

With chance encounters tempting me, desire-

To Know, to Love, to be paid back in kind-

Ill-favoured though I am. And crueler still,

The Knowledge that if you could read my mind,

Your Fall might come in reciprocity.

I must endure; I will abstain. No Hell

Could torture more effectively than a

Sweet moment when you loved and then you Fell.

And I could never tempt you in that way.

And yet, if you could Fall in Love with me?

Oh! Bless’ed - Damned - Ineffability!

His eyes scanned it, taking in the words and the emotion that somehow permeated the very wood-pulp the paper was made from, reading it again, and then once more. The breath he didn’t need to take caught in his throat.

“Oh _Crowley!_ ” he sighed. “Oh, my dear!”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into this fandom. Comments are like potato chips: I can't get enough and they fuel me through insomniac bursts of writing, so please leave lots!


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